A UK High Court ruled on Tuesday that British tycoon Mike Lynch’s estate and his former finance director owe US tech company, Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, more than 700 million pounds ($943 million) after losing a fraud case involving Lynch’s software company.
The court’s decision comes nearly a year after Lynch was killed when his superyacht sank off Sicily on August 19, killing Lynch, his daughter, and seven others while 15 of those who had gathered on the superyacht to celebrate Lynch’s acquittal in a separate US criminal trial survived.
Hewlett-Packard Enterprise had accused Lynch of fraud and conspiracy after it bought Lynch's company, Autonomy Corp, for $11 billion. It took Lynch to court and sought up to $4 billion in damages in a civil case.
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Even though the High Court had ruled mostly in HPE’s favour in 2022, the judge had said that the amount awarded would be “substantially less” than the company was seeking.
Originally due to issue a draft ruling in September, Judge Robert Hildyard delayed it after Lynch’s yacht, the Bayesian, sank in the storm off Sicily. In a written judgment, Hildyard expressed his “sympathy and deepest condolences” to Lynch's wife and family.
Hildyard also ruled HPE suffered a loss of 646 million pounds based on the difference between Autonomy's purchase price and what it would have paid had Autonomy's "true financial position been correctly presented".
HPE is also owed 51.7 million pounds for “personal claims related to deceit and/or misrepresentation” against Lynch and Sushovan Hussain, the finance director, and $47.5 million for other losses.
Hussain was convicted in a 2018 US trial of wire fraud and other crimes related to Autonomy's sale, and sentenced to five years in prison.
HPE released a statement after the Tuesday ruling, saying they were pleased that this decision brings them a step closer to the resolution of this dispute.
"We look forward to the further hearing at which the final amount of HPE's damages will be determined," it further noted.
A hearing to deal with interest, currency conversion and whether Lynch's estate can appeal is set for November.
In a statement written before his death and issued posthumously, Lynch said the ruling shows that HP's original claim "was not just a wild overstatement - misleading shareholders - but it was off the mark by 80%".
"This result exposes HP's failure and makes clear that the immense damage to Autonomy was down to HP's own errors and actions," he had said.
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